


Gusts from the Depths

by TheHighestPie



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Byron - Freeform, Gen, July Revolution, Optimistic angst, Pre-Darwinian Biology, Romanticism, robespierre - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHighestPie/pseuds/TheHighestPie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ongoing series of one-shots in which the Amis have the chance to contemplate what death means to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Robespierre

**Author's Note:**

> Begun on FFN 12/20/08.
> 
> After the July Revolution, a bunch of enthusiastic republicans tried to find Robespierre's remains, said to be buried somewhere near the Parc Monceau. They were unsuccessful, and the body remains lost to this day.

It is the first day of August, 1830, and all about the edge of the Parc Monceau, little clusters of men are occupying themselves by digging trenches in the dry but well-maintained lawn. Sweaty and covered in dust, many have stripped down to their shirtsleeves in both a concession to the heat and as an affirmation of the heady egalitarian spirit that drives their shovels into the resisting dirt. In any other circumstances, they would be instantly set upon by angry policemen, but given that they have just succeeded in overthrowing a monarch and still have their arms at hand, no one dares to challenge them as they intently ruin the aesthetics of one of Paris' loveliest parks in search of a small body with a shattered jaw, perhaps clothed in the remnants of a sky-blue coat.

There are some attempts at order, in the beginning, with talk of the groups following a rough archeological grid, but the thoroughly democratic diggers soon decide that they prefer to follow their own hearts and intuition, running enthusiastically toward a seemingly arbitrary point and setting to work as if guided by water-witching rods instead of flailing shovels. A few go much farther into the park than is necessary, tearing up shrubs and flowerbeds with abandon.

One man, however, never runs and only uproots grass. Looking slightly dazed, he wanders toward a lonely patch of lawn, far away from the other diggers. He closes his eyes for a few moments, bowing his head toward the earth as if in prayer, then plunges his blade into the soil with a soft grunt.

Several hours later, his pit reaches up to his chest, causing everything but his wobbling Phrygian cap to disappear every time he bends down for another scoop of dirt. His yellow hair is dark, lank, and wet while his normally immaculate clothing and pale skin are both an uneven brown, the sweat and clay making the numerous cuts and scrapes on his body sting uncomfortably. He digs more gently than efficiency would demand, afraid of damaging that for which he searches. He is so involved in the rhythm of his work that he jumps slightly as a shadow falls over him and a familiar voice comments,

"I thought I'd find you here. Looking for old green-glasses, are you?"

He swivels his head upwards, blinking into the harsh sunlight. His cravat, long loosened and draped over the back of his neck for protection from sunburn, slides off and falls in a heap at the bottom of the pit. "Courfeyrac."

"You know, if he were going to resurrect himself from the soil in a blaze of glory, he probably would have done it by now. You've missed 9 Thermidor by a full five days."

"I daresay we were doing rather more important work then."

"Exactly. Do you think he would have wanted to miss the fun?"

Enjolras lets go of his shovel and places his hand reverently on the wall of the hole. "We found his spirit a few days ago. We now have the duty to allow his body the same honor." He laughs hoarsely. "The man just won't leave us in peace."

Courfeyrac looks down dubiously. "Judging by you, I'd say it's the other way around."

He is barely able to duck in time, and the shovelful of dirt aimed for his head manages to knock off his hat. "Fine, then!" he yells indignantly. "Keep your mysticism! And I was going to offer you something to drink!"

Nevertheless, he returns a half-hour later with food, a flask of water, and a glass of wine, hands them down into the earth, and then wanders bemusedly through the decimated gardens until dusk. When it is almost too dark to see, he hoists the filthy, exhausted Enjolras out of the chin-deep hole with a fond sigh of exasperation.

Enjolras throws his red bonnet into the pit and Courfeyrac matches it with a handful of uprooted flowers. They crumble a few clumps of dirt over the edge before wandering home, each lost in his own thoughts.


	2. Catastrophism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The great naturalist Georges Cuvier died on May 13, 1832 during the same cholera epidemic that carried of Lamarque. Clearly this needed to be written.

I stand awaiting the cortege of a general, but somewhat predictably, my mind dwells instead on a man of science. Cuvier is dead – has been dead for nearly a month – and I find myself unable to bury him. As Lamarque is about to so vividly demonstrate, great men never truly rest in peace.

Lamarque and Cuvier. Lamarck and Cuvier. Curious how these things tie together.

Lamarck was the leading proponent of gradual change over the eons. It would appear that Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire succeeded in corrupting me, for I am drawn to the idea; it agrees with my temperament. And yet, standing here, awaiting the storm, it is hard to deny Cuvier's elegantly brutal logic. The old world is destroyed, and an improved, more complex one comes in to take its place.

But if the principles of destruction-rebirth are to justify whatever actions we take in the next hours or days, they must imply not mere chronology but instead causation: for a new world to rise, the old one must first be destroyed. Is that truly what I believe? In zoology and politics alike, I hold the idea of steady progress dear, but there is no stagnation in nature, nor the capacity for injustice. Man alone has that privilege. Thus it is man alone who may find himself with the duty to deliberately destroy.

While I doubt Cuvier would support our politics, it would appear that we are his greatest representatives, for what is revolution if not the most perfect form of human catastrophism?

Deep below the mob's restless feet, the geological strata hold the secrets of a thousand lost worlds. If I could dig into this earth, the very stones would tell me the stories of the millennia. Would it a tale of destruction or peaceful succession? Lamarck and Cuvier are a part of that natural history, returned as they are to the soil. Is the answer any clearer to them now? Perhaps I will soon learn, if I am destined to join them today.

I remember, just two years ago, the debate between Cuvier and Geoffroy that so fixated the Academy. It pained me that I could not attend, but I read the transcripts over until I practically committed them to memory. When I congratulated Saint-Hilaire on his performance, he smiled and shook my hand, remembering me as the young man who had shown such enthusiasm over the carotid artery a few years previous. I brought the records to one of the ABC's haunts and we furiously argued over their contents for a few evenings. At the time, the debate seemed like a clash of titans so momentous as to physically shake the Earth to its distant core. Point! Rebuttal! Specimens and studies produced! Goethe applauding! Lamarck reaching out from beyond the grave! Put your ear to the ground in India, in Brazil, in China, and hear the aftershocks of each man's words! What, some asked not long after, was the substitution of one king for another, compared to such a pivotal moment in human knowledge?

I wonder if my comrades would even remember the issue today. Such concerns seem so distant now, suspended as we are between the heavens and the grave. How I wish that this world's ills could indeed be cured through an impassioned debate, through just one more well-reasoned study, through another bold expedition to a distant, fossil-rich land – but not now, not yet. Politics must take precedence if we are to engender a world in which science can truly reign.

And yet Cuvier's presence is thick in the air today, and I think his spirit flies with us, watching, waiting. I can only pray that, through whatever happens, we may vindicate his life's work. Mountains and oceans have moved; surely men can as well. We are now agents of the volcano, the earthquake, the tidal wave, the storm. All my life, I have tried to build, but insomuch as that I must now destroy, may the rubble be fertile.


	3. This chance is theirs, to be of use

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jehan, Bahorel, bones, and booze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Directly inspired by ColDespard's "Les Bousingos" picture, but like that work, it owes no small debt to MmeBahorel's Byron-loving Bahorel (primarily seen in "Thamus" and "Toussaint"), and to a wonderful bit of meta about Jehan started by MmeJavert. All quotations are from Byron's "Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed from a Skull."

"You really have outdone yourself this time, my dear Romantic," Bahorel nearly gasped as Jean Prouvaire lifted the square of red silk with a flourish to reveal a pair of jawless skulls placed almost casually on Prouvaire's dining table. Bahorel tentatively reached out his index finger towards one mottled cheek. "What are they for?"

"Turn it over and see." To demonstrate, Jehan casually lifted the smaller of the two skulls and turned its underside towards Bahorel. A hole had been cut into the arch of the occipital bone. Bahorel looked nonplussed, so Jehan pointed to a bottle of wine sitting on the table near the second skull.

"A cup? You want me to drink from a skull? Like Byron?"

Prouvaire nodded.

"You do know that Byron's famous cup was, according to all I've heard, made of only the skull's cap?"

"You mean no eye sockets? No teeth? God, then what's the point?" he looked truly indignant at the idea.

Bahorel, amazed despite himself, could find no words to do justice to the question. "You have out-Byroned Byron, which is to say, you have Prouvaired."

"Nonsense," he replied, clearly pleased. "I have yet to die vaingloriously."

"Ach. Still plenty of time for that."

"Or not much time at all, depending on how one wants to view things. But first thing's first. Come now, pick it up. It can't hurt you now. Unless, of course, you're frightened."

It was a childish taunt, but one that Bahorel couldn't ignore. He lightly ran his rough fingertips over the top of the curved bone, down its smooth back, then hooked them underneath to lift it. "It's beautiful," he murmured. "Where did you manage to get it?"

Prouvaire bit his lower lip like a child with a secret trying not to smile. "I have my sources."

"Oh? One of the medical students?"

"Hardly. The heads they deal with are often too fresh for our purposes. But never mind that. As our scientist friends would tell you, the opening you see is artificial. As delightful as it would have been to drink from the original passageway, it is inconveniently positioned, so a new one was made. Look inside the rim and you'll see that the insides are plated with silver, just like the coin stamped over the spine-hole. The man wanted to silver or varnish the outsides, the fool, but I wouldn't let him. If they are destined to become dust, fine, but I had to be able to _touch_ them. I would have left the inside alone as well, but it would have been ineffective, albeit dramatic, for our drinks to come gushing out the nose."

"A pity, but I'll forgive you this time."

A flash of true regret suddenly disrupted Jehan's near-glee. "I am sorry I cannot offer you the bones of a monstrous abbot."

"Phaw. He likely invented that tale."

He gasped in inspiration. "No abbot here, but something better!" Prouvaire closed his eyes and touched the skull's forehead to his own. "He – no," he inhaled deeply, his nostrils neatly aligned with where the nose had been, " _she_ was an unhappy woman. She thought herself happy for a time, for she…" he inhaled again, "she was in love."

"But of course!"

"But this love, the greatest light in her life, was doomed, for she was married."

"But of course!"

"Silence! Do you wish to disrespect her struggles? Continuing, she was the daughter of a very rich merchant forced to marry an old, impoverished aristocrat for his title. The man's poverty had made him cruel and cold. Trapped beneath his roof, she could feel her youth and vivacity being rapidly stifled. What choice did she have but to fall in love?"

"None, I'm sure, but her death?"

"To know her death, you must first know her life, you boor. In brief, her lover was a beautiful young student of neither money nor family nor fame."

"Much like ourselves." Bahorel tried not to notice that Prouvaire, still holding the skull to his face, had taken to stroking the hollows of its cheekbones with his thumbs.

"Naturally. Their passion burned for over a year, but the husband began to suspect that something was different. His sad little wife had become too happy. He hired investigators, who found enough to suspect the poor student but nothing to prove the affair. Not wishing to make a scandal, he bribed a pair of military officers to draft the boy. The young lover had only time to leave a letter with a friend before he was sent off to the Austrian front.

"The husband thought that he had won a great victory, but only until he discovered that his wife was missing. She had followed the student-soldier to the front. She arrived mere days after him, but alas! he was killed in his very first battle. As soon as she heard the news, she picked up a fallen sabre and plunged it through her broken heart."

"An incredible beginning for an incredible drinking vessel. I should be happy with…the skull of a nobleman. Beheaded in '93."

"I see it now! He comes to me! A marquis, I think."

"Hush! He's mine! He thought himself a man of progress. Read Voltaire, laughed at the Church, gave to the poor."

"Ah! But it wasn't enough!"

"No. He lived happily, and well. Too well. I can see it now: paintings, horses, music."

"Feasts, dances."

"Grand homes."

"Grandchildren."

"A score of them, yes! A little mob laughing and crowding about his fat knees! He was not a bad man, but he could not separate his identity from his holdings nor his title. I will not recount his sufferings on his path to the guillotine, but will content myself to say that he died as he had lived: an aristocrat."

Prouvaire tried to clap but then realized that he was still holding his tragic suicide so contented himself with a "bravo!"

"A drink for the dead!"

"What's the poison? Brandy and cream? I hear that's the custom."

"No. A good Bordeaux."

"Oh? Somewhere, I think a sommelier just passed out in horror."

"And you smiled to see him faint. You cannot deny the aesthetics of the deep red pouring from the cranium like the very lifeblood that once flowed through it."

Bahorel considered arguing that the cream would doubtless be closer in hue and texture to brain matter, but no, the aesthetics of red-on-white were indeed irrefutable, especially if the wine over time dripped over the hole's thick rim and stained the bone. And it was far easier to get drunk on wine than on liquored cream. In any event, Jehan, skull returned to the table, was already uncorking a bottle with an eagerness that would have made their hypothetical sommelier blush, were he not already unconscious.

"Flip it over then. Give me the – eh, I'd call it the mouth, were it a glass. The hole, then."

Bahorel obliged, holding the singular cup before him like a perverse offering bowl. He could not suppress a shudder at the sound and feel of the liquid sloshing in the terrible darkness of the interior. It was wonderful. He tore himself away from the stream of wine to look at Jehan's intent face. Prouvaire, feeling the gaze, stopped pouring to return it. The look joy and horror that they shared was, as far as Bahorel was concerned, nothing short of pure rapture.

Prouvaire grinned almost predatorily, a curiously unnerving expression on so gentle a face. "Pour for me, then? Madame is thirsty."

The marquis was propped up between two piles of books on the table so that Bahorel could return the favor.

" _Fill up-thou canst not injure me;_ " Prouvaire recited as Bahorel finished emptying the bottle. " _The worm hath fouler–_ "

"Come now, there is no need to quote something we both know."

"Fine," Prouvaire replied, sulkily pulling the skull to his chest. "What would you have me say, then?"

"You're the poet – why waste your breath on another man's words? I would much rather hear your own."

"Ah!" The pout vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "A toast, then!"

"Yes! A toast!"

Prouvaire lifted his macabre cup with both hands and, Hamlet-like, stared at a point somewhere beyond its empty, inverted eye sockets. His lips curved into a little smirk, but for a long minute, he said nothing.

"Well?" Bahorel demanded when he felt the moment had lost its power.

"Patience. My poor suicide needs a worthy epitaph."

"And my marquis cares not for such things. He is becoming lightheaded from the wine and is begging me to empty him of it."

"' _What nobler substitute than…_ ' well, you know the rest. But as you wish." Neither Prouvaire's gaze nor his expression had shifted. "To sweet mortality!"

"Dry mortality, I'd say, if the Bordeaux is any good." Prouvaire turned and glared. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! Mortality it is, then!"

They touched the domes of the skulls to each other, laughed at the cumbersome gesture, then drank heartily.

 


	4. Common Cause

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Dog Eat Dog" is a horrifying song, but its implications probably shouldn't provoke the revulsion that they do.

Feuilly was sprawled across a conveniently step-like pile of paving stones, absently fiddling with his rifle, when Joly dropped down beside him with a sigh. His sleeves were generously spotted with blood.

" 'lo, there. Combeferre ordered me to take a break, so I thought I'd join you for a moment."

"How's it going in there?"

"As well as can be expected, I suppose. We've bandaged up what we can, and the gun smoke has done wonders for my cold. I'm just waiting now, I suppose."

"If you have nothing to do, then why'd Combeferre have to kick you out?"

"He's finishing up on his own. We were almost done, and he could tell I needed to step outside for some air. The vapors inside confound me, and the room has no sense of order."

"You came over to tell me that your vapors were annoying Combeferre?"

"That's hardly –"

"And you decided to bother me with talk of them instead. Well done! You can go on about magnets and me about Poland and we'll make a perfect pair. We'll just look like harmless madmen when the Guard storms the barricade, so they won't think we're a threat. And then… _bang_!" he jumped up and gave the air an energetic stab with the rifle.

"Christ!" Joly jumped at the sudden noise. "Not _now_ , Feuilly."

"I'm just trying to…what's wrong?"

"This isn't a time to be joking about death."

"When else will I be able to laugh in death's face?" Joly's expression didn't change. "Wait, what happened in there? Why'd you really have to leave?"

"It's nothing."

Feuilly gently set down his rifle, and sat down again. "You're shaking."

Joly wrapped his arms defensively around his knees. "It's not easy being among the wounded and dying when I know that I could join them at any second."

"It can't be new for you," Feuilly replied sharply.

"Oh, I've seen it all before. And I knew what we'd all be facing. It's just…I've got my card with my name and father's address in my waistcoat, but I've been watching men dying inside, and I can't stop thinking about, well…"

"About?"

He drew in a sharp, shuddering breath. "The thought that my body could somehow not be recovered as it should. I know I shouldn't care, but…oh! To die with my eyes and spirit filled with light, and then to be lost in the mud! To fall I can accept, must accept, but to be lost is intolerable."

"For your family?"

Joly unconsciously touched the pocket in which he had tucked the card. "I wish I could say I were that selfless, I do. And that's part of it, of course, I'm not a heartless son, but there are worse fates than ending unidentified on the dissection table."

"Or identified," Feuilly snorted. "Can you imagine the other students' faces if they saw they were cutting up a friend?"

Joly smiled wanly. "Heh, yes. Or that. There are precautions against that, you know, but if it did happen, they'd likely just make a few jokes about my weak spleen and continue as before."

"They'd keep going?"

"I would," Joly shrugged. "No need to waste me once I'm there. If I make it there." His face darkened again. "But to be left for the rats and the dogs and the looters…it, it, it just seems so _wrong_ to decompose so poorly after dying so well – so wrong that I'm beginning to doubt that I _can_ die well with the thought haunting me. I'll be of little use to the Republic if I'm less concerned with defending the barricade as needed than I am with falling in an obvious place so they can—" he bit back a high sob that he tried to mask by pulling out his mirror and quickly checking his tongue. "But that enough of that. Cowardice is probably contagious in a place like this, and there's no need for me to infect you."

"No need to worry," Feuilly said with surprising indifference. "I'm used to the idea of rotting in the mud. I don't care what to me what happens to me when I'm cold; I won't be there to feel it. Dying with a purpose is more than most people get, especially those people we're fighting for today. I'll be content with that privilege."

Joly gave him a long look. "I know you're right, of course."

"Maybe."

"Stop it. You are. And I'm a hypocrite for not wanting to vanish into the gutters like a pauper, but that's the truth of it. And there's nothing I can do to change that."

Feuilly said nothing.

"And I know I should bear it with pride, the thought of joining the people in death. But I can't."

"Then you can't, and that's the end of it."

"I'm fighting to raise the masses up," Joly continued, searching Feuilly's face for validation, "but I'm not ready to descend to that same anonymous, lonely end. Can you fault me for that, brother? For fearing the fall after the flight?"

"They'll find you, if you fall," he sighed, at last turning to words of comfort. "You know they'll look in all the corners and gutters to make sure that no one got away. You've got your identification, so you'll get your real grave from your family if you need it. If you're taken out before me, I promise to make sure you're brought inside. Don't worry about any of it."

"And you." Joly clasped his hand. "You have your instructions too, for Courfeyrac's family, no? That's what you decided, that they could take care of you if necessary?"

"Yes," Feuilly squeezed his grip once before pulling away. "That's what was decided."

"Well, then," he stood, futilely trying to brush dust from his legs, "I should get back to work inside. …and thank you."

Alone again, Feuilly pulled the small card signed by Courfeyrac out of the deep pocket of his trousers. In what any bystander would have seen as a moment of calm contemplation, he flipped it over a few times, then carefully ripped it into halves, quarters, eighths, and dropped the pieces into the cracks of the barricade. He did not bother to watch them as they fluttered down into the darkness.


	5. The Protest of Corpses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little experiment in imitating Hugo's oratory that seemed to fit this series nicely.
> 
> In the moment where the insurgents decide to commit their lives even though the city is silent, Enjolras offers an alternative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A number of trials did take place after the June Rebellion of 1832, but practically all those brought before the court denied their involvement, or claimed that they had been caught behind the barricades where the real revolutionaries (now conveniently dead) had forced them to fight at gunpoint. The "Jeanne" that Hugo mentions was one of the few exceptions for the fact that he vehemently defended his actions and political convictions.

_A voice, from the most obscure depths of the groups, cried to Enjolras:_

" _So be it. Let us make the barricade twenty feet high, and let us all stand by it. Citizens, let us offer the protest of corpses. Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people."_

_These words relieved the minds of all from the painful cloud of personal anxieties. There were greeted by an enthusiastic acclamation._

* * *

Upon hearing this faceless expression of the general will, Enjolras surveyed the crowd with a proud eye. He then nodded to himself and raised his fist for attention. "A moment, Citizens!" he cried into the tumult. "You say you are willing to die?"

"Yes!" shot back the assembled workers and students.

"All of you?"

"Yes, all!"

"That is good. A final question, then. At least for now, are you willing to live?"

Murmurs broke out all around him.

"Friends of the Republic, you hear me correctly; you do not misinterpret what I say. I am speaking of surrender."

"You can't be serious!" burst out Courfeyrac. "The white flag, handcuffs, trials – after all this? Perhaps some of us could ask for mercy, but you'd see the guillotine!"

"Mercy, never," Enjolras said with tight-reigned fury, "but the white flag, handcuffs, trials, yes. Citizens, you wish the protest of corpses, and that is what you shall have, we must ask ourselves: where will our blood fall upon the most fertile soil? Remember, even though corpses speak volumes, corpses are silent. They no longer speak for themselves.

"The Republic is in embryo, it is already being born, but it is not between these walls of paving-stones and furnishings that it exists. No, the Republic is a thing that is not a place. It is an idea, and that idea exists within your minds and within your burning souls. It sees with your eyes; it speaks with your mouth; it fights with your hands; and though it does not breathe your last breath, it bleeds your blood.

"To die here, to die now, that is good and that is glorious. It is also easy, to fire your gun when the guns are firing at you, to stand strong with your bayonet in the face of the final charge when you know that you hold the line for the future and that it will be enough for your epitaph to simply read _P_ _rogress!_

"Our audience now consists of closed, unhearing doors. Above them: God. Beyond them: tomorrow. God and the future will not turn away from us in the moment of sacrifice – but think of how many more ears we could yet reach! The magistrates, the papers, the public – all could be forced to watch in admiration as we go bravely and proudly to our deaths. There need not be shame and betrayal in the courtroom! Think of the scorn you could show your executioners. Think of your final cry from the scaffold!"

"I don't have your pretty words," cried a brave workingman at the center of the crowd. "I wouldn't know what to say to any court."

"A steady gaze is as good as a speech," replied Enjolras. "The Republic asks nothing but your loyalty.

"But loyalty – that is the hardest thing of all, once you are back in the world. Citizens, friends, brothers, I have said that it is easy to fight now, but how much more difficult it is to stand your ground before the full force of the law, when you know that a humble plea for mercy may well be honored."

Enjolras turned to where his closest friends were standing together and looked at each of them in turn. "When all your old friends are standing about you, telling you to see reason; when your family is begging you not to forget them; when the teachers and mentors you respected are asking you where they went wrong; when the whole world is telling you there is no need to act the fanatic; then will you be able to stay strong? The manacles are too tight but oh! just one simple word and they will clatter open, and everything can be as it was.

"And once one man falls, the rest will be quick to follow. Can you know you will stay strong?

"You did not properly say goodbye to your mother, to your girl, to the old boys at the pool-hall. You regret that a little now. You might still have the chance, but when you look at the fear and pain in their eyes, will you be able to keep yourself from flinging yourself back into their arms?

"Stay strong, stay loyal, and how much stronger will the Republic be for it? But crumble and you will deal the future a terrible blow.

"People spit on traitors and call them Judas. But we are every day surrounded by Judases in this reign of 'moderates.' Could you keep yourself from joining their ranks?"

Enjolras had at every moment been closely watching the reactions of the crowd. His friends were staring at him with profound sadness, ready to lead wherever he followed, and some of the rest had looks of fiery defiance, but most of the men were staring at their shoes. They could not continue to look at that fresh face illuminated from within by conviction and illuminated from behind with the first pure rays of morning light when their own hearts had been set to shuddering.

"And after the trial," he pressed on, "could you accept with somber joy the unfeeling blade of the guillotine, already red with the blood of your comrades?"

A few more gazes broke off from his.

"So be it." He bent and lifted his gun from where he had set it down on an upended table. "The Republic asks for nothing more than what we can give, and what we can give is our lives today. I pledge this to you, then: no quarter, no surrender, to the very last man! My blood with yours and yours with mine! You say twenty feet to the barricade? I say twenty-five! Bossuet, Feuilly, you two reinforce the right flank. Combeferre, take stock of the ammunition. If we are to scream out all our eloquence in a single breath, then let our cry be heard to the heavens! The protest of corpses it is!"


End file.
